Today I Hit An All Time Low

If you've been following this blog for any amount of time you know I love to thrift. In addition to "loving" to thrift I also possess a passion for re-purposing, re-using and re-cycling.

I'm also broke.

When I was in the Social Security office recently with The Teenager and learned that I "may qualify for Medicaid " I felt it was the perfect summation on paper of my current financial status.

Irregardless, I still "tithe" and have consistently for 11 years now. I give 10% of my income to organizations and ministries that I feel make a difference in communities primarily in this country. I just got a letter from an organization in inner city NYC last week with photos of two kids I sent to camp this summer. One of them I already know as I have been sponsoring her since she was in pre-k and she is now in middle school. My sponsorship provides Thanksgiving dinner, Christmas presents and school supplies and so much more.

The founder of this ministry, Bill Wilson, is from my city. He was abandoned by his alcoholic mother at the age of 12 on a bench near the over pass that runs a few blocks from the home I live in now. Every Christmas eve, Rev. Wilson comes back to our city and spends time sitting on that very bench where his mother left him.

He was taken in by the elders of a church up the street when they became concerned after seeing him sitting in the same spot for more than a day still waiting for his mom.

She never returned.

The church paid for his braces. They clothed and fed him. They sheltered him and they sent him to college.

Back in those days one could do this without DCF swooping in.

If you go to the organization link I posted above watch the video about Bill being shot. He has also been blinded and beaten while living in NYC since 1980. His associate pastor was stabbed and killed a few years ago.

Bill still lives in the same apartment he rented in Bedford-Stuyvesant over 30 years ago.

Over the years as my income has dwindled my 10% to worthy causes has as well. I keep telling the Lord that 10% of $3,000.00 is $300.00 while 10% of $300.00 is only $30.00.

He keeps reminding me He knows how to do math.

So we live frugally. Which brings me to hitting an all time low.

Yes, you all knew I'd get back to that eventually.

Last Monday I stopped at a local Salvation Army thrift store on a whim and discovered that the week before they had begun a senior 1/2 price day every Monday.

Be still my elderly heart!


Today I went back and spent a whopping $8.00.I bought a Liz Claiborne shirt for The Teenager, two shirts for The Baby, cammo pj's for The Boy, a Karen Neuburger nightgown and a red blouse for myself for work and....

a bra

No. It was not a new bra.

According to The Bra Fairy web site:

" On average women buy 7 bras per year from Walmart, Macy's, Lane Bryant, Nordstrom's, Victoria Secret, etc. at an average cost of $20-$60/bra for a total of $140 - $420 annually. (This does not include athletic, nursing or specialty bras.) Store-bought bras typically last only 3-6 months at most."

Seriously? $420.00 annually? I could send a lot of kids to camp for that price including my own crew.

And 3-6 months?

Snort.

I'll bet the bra donor spent more time in my thrift find today than 3 to 6 months. Just saying.

Anyway, I have to look at this realistically.

It cost me 99 cents and it hoists the puppies up. What more could one ask for?


Besides I'm tired of tripping on them.